Advances in the field of telecommunications have resulted in a variety of types of telecommunications systems being available for use by the general public. Among these telecommunications systems, cellular telephone systems are presently one of the most rapidly developing in terms of technologies and services offered. Cellular systems are currently in widespread use worldwide, with continued growth in sales and subscribers predicted for the future.
Several types of technologies have become dominant in the cellular industry. In the United States most cellular systems currently operating use analog signal transmission techniques, as specified by the Telecommunications Industry Association/Electronic Industry Association (TIA/EIA) AMPS standard, or a combination of analog and time division multiple access (TDMA) signal transmission techniques, as specified by the TIA/EIA IS-54 and IS-136 standards. In Europe, cellular systems may operate according to one of several analog system standards, depending on the country, or according to the digital Global Services for Mobile (GSM) TDMA standard that has been specified for Europe. In other parts of the world most cellular systems operate according to one of the standards used in the United States or Europe, except for in Japan where the TDMA personal digital communication (PDC) standard has been developed and is in use. However, in spite of the present dominance of analog and TDMA technologies, the cellular industry is dynamic and new technologies are constantly being developed as alternatives to these currently dominant technologies. One alternative digital signal transmission technique that has recently been the focus of interest for cellular systems is known as code division multiple access (CDMA). In a CDMA system multiple users, each using a channel identified by a uniquely assigned digital code, communicate with the system while sharing the same wideband frequency spectrum.
CDMA provides several advantages over conventional analog or TDMA systems. Frequency spectrum allocation planning for mobile stations and the base stations of cells within a CDMA system is not necessary, as in analog and TDMA systems, because all CDMA base stations share the entire downlink frequency spectrum, and all mobiles share the entire uplink frequency spectrum. The fact that the wideband frequency spectrum is shared by all uplink or downlink users in CDMA also increases capacity since the number of users that can be multiplexed simultaneously is limited by the number of digital codes available to identify the unique communications channels of the system, not by the number of radio frequency channels available. Additionally, since the energy of the transmitted signals are spread over the wide band uplink or downlink frequency band, selective frequency fading does not affect the whole CDMA signal. Path diversity is also provided in a CDMA system. If multiple propagation paths exist, they can be separated as long as the differences in path delays exceed 1/BW, where BW equals the bandwidth of the transmission link. An example of a widely accepted cellular system CDMA standard is the TIA/EIA IS-95-A system standard.
Because data transmission applications other than conventional voice traffic transmission are becoming increasingly important in the cellular system area, a system operator who operates a CDMA system may desire to provide services other than phone voice service. Examples of these other services include portable computer cellular modem service or video service. Often, these other services may require that data be transmitted at a rate much faster than that required for voice transmission.
In the case where it is desired to provide a range of different services in a CDMA cellular system, a method and apparatus for varying the data transmission rate in the system, where the data rate could vary within a range required for all system services, would be useful. It would be desirable that this apparatus provide both slower speed data transmission for efficient and reliable speech service and high speed data transmission for other applications. For example, the IS-95-A system is limited to a maximum data rate of 9600 bits per second (9.6 kbps) and it may be desirable to provide services in the IS-95-A system that require data transmission at rates greater than 9.6 kbps. Additionally, because of the large costs involved in developing new systems, it would also be desirable if this apparatus could be operated within an existing system on a noninterfering basis with slower speed transmitters and receivers, and could be implemented with minimum modifications to the air interface of the existing system.